Get your motherboard ready for Windows 10

Windows 10 starts rolling out tomorrow. We've already told you how to prepare your PC for Windows 10, and Windows will help you update your components to the latest drivers once you've made the upgrade. But there's one important update you can make before installing Windows 10 to ensure a smooth change-over, and that's updating your motherboard BIOS.

Don't remember the exact name of your motherboard? Download the free utility CPU-Z to find out, or just boot into your BIOS, where you'll want to do the update, anyway.

If you're already running Windows 8, Windows 10 will likely work just fine on your system without a BIOS update. But if you haven't updated your BIOS in years, now's a good time to do it. Flashing a new BIOS could help you avoid bugs, make your new Windows install more stable, and support new hardware. And the drivers motherboard vendors offer may also help with hardware compatibility, if Windows Update doesn't download them by default.